The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't by Nate Silver. Very Gladwellesque. Great read. I think a lot of what design does is prediction, although in a much more qualitative way compared to Silver's quantitative methods.

I've heard a lot about 1Q84. How are you finding it? I read a couple of pages from it in a book store and I'm going to order it in English on my next trip there.

I'm in the middle of my second reading of Animal Farm after having just re-read Nineteen Eighty-four. Before this I read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The one before that was Brave New World by Huxley.I'm in the Utopian theme phase.

Starting with horse-drawn chariots, cabriolets, broughams, coupés, and the like, through wood and fabric covered bodies, to the last of the bespoken hand-crafted, wood-framed, metal-skinned automobiles by Austin, Morris, Park Ward, Lyons, Rolls-Royce, &c. A great source of "locomotive" history, builders, and terminology.

This account examines the history of coachbuilding, beginning with the coachbuilders who for generations had built horse-drawn wooden carriages, and then explaining how they turned their craft to building the bodywork of the first motorised cars. Using photographs of the different stages of coachbuilding, the author describes the materials, equipment and key techniques involved. Today the profession of coachbuilding is almost a lost art, yet as the restoration of vintage cars seeks to keep the trade alive, this book reflects back on the heyday of the coachbuilt motor car and the skilled workers that made it their craft.

Good insight into what worked and didn't work for LEGO as they pulled themselves back from the financial brink. I especially liked how management/ innovation trends were interpreted and adopted to make them work, for example "wisdom of the crowd" was actually effective as "wisdom of the clique". LEGO seems to have gone from a very insular 'we know best' company to a very open one, they have provided quite a lot of access to the authors and have taken the approach that all their mistakes need to be out in the open, in order not to repeat them.